Middle East factfile: Key figures

12:01AM GMT 15 Jan 2002

Ariel Sharon (1928-)

He later went on to join the Hagganah, a pre-independence Jewish paramilitary group operating in Palestine. In 1949 he enlisted as a military intelligence officer in Israel's armed forces and was later recruited to lead assaults on Arab villages with his newly formed 101 Brigade.

During the 1956 Arab-Israeli war Mr Sharon's troops invaded the Sinai peninsular in Egypt but were later forced to withdraw. Promoted to Major General, Mr Sharon led a further assault on the Sinai during the 1967 Six-Day war.

Following the Yom Kippur war in 1973, he resigned from the military to pursue a career in politics. As Minister for Agriculture between 1977 and 1981 he doubled the number of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

As Defence Minister in 1981, he led a military strike to remove the PLO from Lebanon after the attempted assassination of an Israeli diplomat in London by the Abu Nidal group.

After surrounding and shelling West Beruit, Mr Sharon succeeded in expelling Yasser Arafat and the PLO to Tunis.

Following this, troops under his command oversaw the massacre of 2000 Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Israeli soldiers surrounded the camps and allowed Israeli-backed Phalangist militiamen, led by Eli Hubiker, to slaughter the inhabitants who Mr Sharon referred to as "the terrorists".

An Israeli government commission of Inquiry found Ariel Sharon to be "indirectly responsible" for the Sabra and Shatila atrocities and called for his resignation.

As Minister for Construction and Housing from 1990-92, he actively encouraged the development of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

In 1999 he took over from Benjamin Netanyahu as leader of the Right-wing Likud party.

Although regarded as a war criminal by many people, Mr Sharon enjoyed popular support from the Israeli right for his hard line stance on the Middle East peace process.

His high profile visit in September 2000 to the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) complex in Jerusalem sparked violent Palestinian protests which rapidly escalated into a second Intifada.

Pledging to provide security for Israeli citizens, Mr Sharon was elected as Israel's prime minister on 6th February 2001. Following his election, he refused to participate in face-to-face negotiations with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and pursued a policy of dismantling the Palestinian Authority.

In June 2002, his government approved the construction of a "security fence" in the West Bank, annexing large areas of Palestinian farmland and West Bank territory to Israel.

In October 2002, the Labour party pulled out of Mr Sharon's Labour / Likud national unity coalition after disagreements over the funding of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

Elections were held and Mr Sharon was re-elected as Israeli prime minister in January 2003. The following month, Belgium's high court ruled that he could be tried for war crimes after he left office.

In 2004, Ariel Sharon's national security team recommended that Israel withdraw from virtually all of the Gaza Strip and up to 24 West Bank settlements. The proposal was fiercely opposed by the Likud party's right wing.

Nevertheless, in August 2005 the first Israeli West Bank settlers were evacuated, to widespread dismay. The Gaza withdrawal plan mobilised the country's largest ever civil protest movement, provoking unprecedented displays of violence by Jews against Jews.

Mr Sharon held his stance on pragmatic grounds. ''Gaza is an area where there was no chance of establishing a Jewish majority, and which would clearly, in any final agreement, not be part of the State of Israel,'' he said.

But in September 2005, he narrowly avoided a humiliating defeat in a vote within the Likud party's central committee. The ballot, over the timing of leadership elections, was turned into a test of confidence in Mr Sharon's running of the government by his rival, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The narrowness of Mr Sharon's victory, with 51 per cent of votes against Mr Netanyahu's 49 per cent, threw into stark relief the divisions within the party.

In November, following opinion polls which suggested that he could easily defeat Mr Netanyahu in a general election, Ariel Sharon announced that he would leave Likud to start a new centrist movement.

Mahmoud Abbas (1935-)

Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority on Jan 9, 2005, with more than 62 per cent of vote.

Also known popularly as Abu Mazen, he is seen as a moderate who opposes the use of violence in the fight for a separate and independent Palestinian state.

A clear favourite in the presidential race against his main rival Mustafa Barghouti, Mr Abbas reiterated his stand during his election campaign that violence against Israel should end.

He also campaigned for the return of Palestinian refugees and an end to corruption within the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The 69-year-old Mr Abbas became chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)on the death of the former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died in Paris on Nov 11, 2004.

In 2003, he became the first prime minister of the PA but resigned just four months later over differences with Mr Arafat on control of Palestinian security forces.

While prime minister, Mr Abbas met George W Bush, the US president, and Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, for talks in Aqaba, Jordan, to restore the so-called "road map" to peace.

But he was undermined by Mr Arafat's refusal to relinquish his security powers and Israel's refusal to make progress in the peace talks.

Earlier, in 1993, Mr Abbas accompanied Mr Arafat to the White House to sign the Oslo Peace Accord, which led to interim peace deals.

He played an important behind-the-scenes role in the negotiations.

Born in 1935 in the ancient city of Safed in what is now northern Israel, Mr Abbas fled with his family to Syria in 1948 after the creation of the Jewish state of Israel.

He studied law at Damascus University in Syria before co-founding Fatah, the dominant Palestinian political party.

He accompanied Mr Arafat into exile in Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia.

In 1964, he helped found the PLO. In 1968, Mr Abbas was appointed a member of the Palestine National Council.

When the PLO moved its headquarters to Lebanon in the 1970s, Mr Abbas remained in Syria, distancing himself from militant activities.

After the interim peace deals, he returned to the Palestinian territories in 1995 and was made secretary-general of the PLO's executive committee a year later.

Mr Abbas has avoided public attention as much as Mr Arafat used to seek it.

His suits, as opposed to Mr Arafat’s military uniform, also lend him a business-like image.

The new president’s moderate stance has made him popular with the United States and Israel, but Palestinians sometimes see him as pacifying the Jewish state.

Mr Abbas’ election is seen as a boost to the Middle East peace process because of his insistence on dialogue.

Benjamin Netanyahu (1949-)

His brother Jonathan was killed leading the Entebbe raid in 1976.

From 1982-84, Mr Netanyahu was the deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in Washington. He was Israel's ambassador to the United Nations between 1984 and 1988.

In 1988 he was elected to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, representing the Likud party. He was deputy foreign minister between 1991 and 1992 and became leader of Likud in 1993.

Mr Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister when Likud won the election in 1996.

He pursued a harder line towards Palestinian autonomy than his immediate predecessors and the Oslo peace process collapsed.

He lost the 1999 election and resigned from the Knesset.

Riding on increased popularity within the Israeli right, Mr Netanyahu joined Ariel Sharon's national unity government as foreign minister in November 2002.

He failed to replace his rival Ariel Sharon as Likud leader in the January 2003 elections and was demoted to the position of finance minister in February 2003.

However, Benjamin Netanyahu became the most prominent member of a band of right-wing rebels within the Likud party who vehemently opposed the closure of Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.

In November 2005, a vote within Likud to decide the date of the next general election was widely seen as a tussle between Mr Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon over control of the party.

Ariel Sharon narrowly defeated his rival, winning just 51 per cent of the vote. Later the same month he announced plans to leave the divided Likud party in order to start a new, centrist movement.

Shimon Peres (1923-)

In 1949 he headed the Defence Ministry's procurement delegation in the United States and was the ministry's director-general between 1953 and 1959.

A member of Israel's parliament since 1959, he served as deputy defence minister from 1959-1965 and established Israel's nuclear weapons programme.

In 1968 he was instrumental in forming the Israel Labour Party from a variety of left-of-centre parties and became Minister of Immigration Absorption in 1969.

He was Transport Minister between 1971-1974 and Defence Minister from 1974 to 1977.

He succeeded Yitzhak Rabin as leader of the Labour Party in 1977, but lost that year's election to Menachem Begin.

He was part of the coalition governments in the mid-1980s and was Prime Minister between 1984 and 1986. He lost the Labour leadership to Mr Rabin in 1992.

As Foreign Minister in Prime Minister Rabin's 1992 government, Mr Peres took a leading role in secret peace talks which led to the Israeli-PLO peace accord in 1993 and was an advocate of Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994 and took over from Mr Rabin when he was assassinated in November 1995.

In 1996 he lost the first direct election for Israeli prime minister to Binyamin Netanyahu and then later lost the Labour leadership to Ehud Barak.

In Mr Barak's government, he was appointed to the newly created post of Minister for Regional Cooperation.

Mr Peres took up the position of foreign minister again in 2001 when he joined Ariel Sharon's coalition cabinet.

He lost his position as foreign minister when Labour pulled out of the national unity coalition in 2002.

Yasser Arafat (1929-2004)

He spent much of his early life with his mother's family in Jerusalem, which was then under British rule.

He graduated from Cairo University with a degree in civil engineering. While at university he was leader of the Palestinian Students' Union.

He fought in the Suez Crisis conflict in 1956 and then settled in Kuwait where he helped found the Fatah underground movement. This organisation launched a series of attacks on Israel with the aim of liberating the country for Palestinians.

Fatah gained control of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1969 with Mr Arafat as its chairman.

After fierce fighting with the Jordanian army, the PLO was expelled from Jordan and its headquarters moved from Amman to the Lebanese capital of Beirut in 1971.

In 1974 the United Nations recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.

Yasser Arafat rapidly became unpopular in Lebanon as PLO cross-border attacks on Israel attracted increasingly fierce Israeli military reprisals which often ended up killing and displacing Lebanese civilians.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an attempt to destroy the PLO, laying siege to Beirut, and Mr Arafat was forced to move his headquarters to Tunis.

In 1985, Yasser Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan both agreed to recognise Israel in 1985 if captured territories were returned. During 1987 the first Palestinian Intifada erupted in Gaza and the West Bank.

The following year Mr Arafat renounced terrorism against Israel and declared that a Palestinian state could coexist with the state of Israel.

A breakthrough in the peace process came when secret talks were arranged with Israel by the Norwegians. An accord (Oslo) was signed with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in September 1993.

Under the terms of the agreement Israel would hand over autonomy to the Palestinians in Gaza and Jericho in the West Bank.

Mr Arafat became President of the Palestinian Authority, the body set up to administer these areas. As a result of the agreement, Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in 1994.

The Oslo accords did not address the main issues hindering peace between Israel and the Palestinians (Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, water and final borders), these issues were reserved for final status talks scheduled to take place after an interim phase. The accords expired in 1999 without ever reaching a final status phase.

Yasser Arafat was criticised in December 2000 for not accepting Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak's offer of a Palestinian state divided by Israeli settlement blocs and bypass roads with full Israeli control of the Jordan Valley and all frontiers.

The second Palestinian Intifada intensified following the break down of the Camp David 2000 talks.

Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority initially appeared to have some control over the Palestinian uprising but rapidly lost the will and ability to reign in rival Islamic factions (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) as its security infrastructure was broken down by Israeli forces.

In December 2001, the Israeli army confined Yasser Arafat to his Ramallah headquarters and stormed the complex in March 2002 following an escalation in suicide bombings inside Israel.

By the beginning of 2003 Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority had largely been destroyed.

US pressure for the Palestinian leadership to reform led to the election of a prime minister to take over many roles formerly carried out by Mr Arafat.

Washington's "road map to peace" plan envisages a reconstructed Palestinian Authority set up to govern an independent Palestinian state by 2005.

The presidency of the Palestinian Authority has been taken over on a temporary basis by Rawhi Fattouh, who holds the reins until elections to appoint a successor to Mr Arafat are held in January 2005.

Ehud Barak (1942-)

As a young officer in the Israeli military he led an elite commando unit, commanding the successful storming of a Sabena airliner hijacked by the Palestinian Black September group at Tel Aviv airport in 1972.

A year later, disguised as a woman, he led an assassination raid in Beirut, targetting the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the Munich Olympic killings.

As deputy chief of staff in 1988, he reportedly coordinated the assassination of Abu Jihad.

Following the 1994 Gaza-Jericho agreement with the Palestinians, Mr Barak, as head of the army, oversaw the IDF's redeployment in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

He played a major role, while still in uniform, in finalizing the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and he also met his Syrian military counterpart as part of the failed 1995-6 Syrian-Israeli negotiations.

After leaving the army, he entered politics at the request of his mentor, Yitzhak Rabin. He joined Mr Rabin's cabinet as Interior Minister in July 1995.

Due to reservations as to the implications for Israel's security, he abstained in the cabinet vote approving the Oslo II agreement with the Palestinians. After Mr Rabin's assassination he became Foreign Minister under Shimon Peres, and replaced the latter as Labour Party leader in 1997, following Mr Peres's 1996 election defeat.

Mr Barak was elected Prime Minister in May 1999 and began his term of office by trying to revive the Israeli-Syrian negotiations; these efforts were unsuccessful.

He withdrew Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in May 2000, in line with an election campaign promise.

He also pledged to reach a final peace agreement with the Palestinians but failed to do this before the Israeli prime ministerial elections of February 2001.

Hosni Mubarak (1928-)

He later attended the Soviet Union's Frounz General Staff Academy. Appointed Air Force chief of staff in 1969, he became commander-in-chief in 1972, and is credited for Egypt's initial strong performance in the 1973 war against Israel.

From 1972 he was also Deputy Minister of War, and became one of President Anwar Sadat's closest advisers. He was appointed Vice President in 1975.

One week after Mr Sadat's assassination in 1981, Mr Mubarak was elected president. At his inauguration he said he would follow his predecessor's policies of peace with Israel and reconciliation with the West.

Under Mr Mubarak's presidency, Egypt has regained its traditional position as leader of the Arab world without downgrading its ties with Israel.

During the Gulf War, Egypt played an important role in building the international coalition against Iraq. Internally, Mr Mubarak faces violent opposition from hardline Islamist factions, who have staged a number of terror attacks over the years.

In 1995, Mr Mubarak escaped unharmed from an assassination attempt while attending a summit meeting in Ethiopia and in 1999 he was slightly wounded by a knife-wielding assailant.

In September 1999, Mr Mubarak won his fourth, six-year term as Egyptian president, taking 93.79 per cent of the vote in a referendum on his presidency. Opposition groups boycotted the poll.

Hafez al-Assad (1928-2000)

He joined the Ba'ath Party in 1946 and graduated from a military academy in 1955 as a pilot officer. He commanded a night fighter squadron in Cairo between 1958 and 1961.

Following a Ba-ath coup in 1963 he became head of the air force and in 1966 was appointed Minister of Defence.

In 1970 he took control of Syria, becoming president the following year. He lost the Golan Heights to Israel in 1967 and failed to retake the territory during the 1973 war.

President Assad was often referred to as a wily politician but was accused by the West of backing terrorist groups. He ruthlessly stamped out a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the Syrian city of Hama in 1982, at the cost of some 20,000 lives.

He opposed the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties with Israel, as well as the Palestinian decision to sign accords with the Jewish state.

Limited Israeli-Syrian negotiations, under the auspices of the United States, proved fruitless as President Assad refused to meet his Israeli counterpart and hold direct, face-to-face talks.

King Hussein of Jordan (1935-1999)

He was enthroned at the age of 17 after his father was deposed due to mental illness. In 1957 he survived a coup attempt and imposed martial law.

King Hussein joined the Egyptian-Syrian defence agreement but lost the West Bank to Israel during the 1967 Six Day War.

Palestinian refugees and activists inside Jordan created tension and King Hussein expelled the PLO from the country in 1970.

During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war King Hussein refused calls from other Arab nations to attack Israel. He also refused to join the Camp David talks between Egypt and Israel in 1978 and strengthened ties with the Soviet Union.

He backed Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988 and severed all links with the West Bank in 1988 after the Palestinian National Council rejected his proposals for Middle East peace.

Following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, King Hussein maintained his links with Baghdad and failed to join the international coalition against Iraq.

In 1994 he signed a peace agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

King Hussein played the role of mediator in Middle East politics and managed to remain on good terms with both the West and the Arab world.

Although his brother Prince Hassan had been groomed to succeed him, King Hussein, shortly before his death, appointed his eldest son Abdullah as his successor.

Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995)

He was Chief of Staff between 1964 and 1968, commanding the army during the 1967 Six Day War. On leaving the army he was appointed ambassador to the US, where he served between 1968 and 1973.

He joined the Israeli Labour Party and was elected to the Knesset in 1973.

When Golda Meir resigned, he challenged Shimon Peres for the leadership and won, becoming Prime Minister in 1974. He resigned as premier in 1977 after it was discovered that he had broken Israeli law by holding a bank account in the US.

He later joined the coalition governments of 1984-88 and 1988-1990 as defence minister and took a tough line in opposing the Palestinian Intifada .

He was elected Labour leader in 1992, won that year's general election and began a second term as Prime Minister.

He signed the Israeli-PLO Accord in 1993 and then the Jordanian peace treaty in 1994. As a result he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres.

He handed over territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, despite the increasingly hostile opposition of hard-line Israelis.

Abu Jihad (1935-1988)

He joined the Egyptian military and met Yasser Arafat. He joined Mr Arafat in Kuwait where he helped to found Fatah, the Palestinian liberation movement.

He was arrested by the Israelis in 1965. Following his release he renamed himself Abu Jihad and continued to organise guerrilla attacks on Israel. With the emerging prominence of the PLO he became Arafat's deputy.

He moved to Tunis in 1982 after the PLO was expelled from Beirut by the Israeli army. He was assassinated in 1988 in an operation reportedly coordinated by Ehud Barak, then the Israeli army's deputy chief of staff.

Mohamed Anwar Sadat (1918-1981)

He rejoined the army and met Egypt's radical leader Gamal Abdul Nasser.

Mr Sadat took part in the 1952 coup to oust King Farouk and became a member of the revolutionary council. President Nasser appointed him vice-president between 1964-66 and again in 1969.

On Mr Nasser's death in 1970 he became Egypt's leader. He was a dedicated Egyptian nationalist and in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war he led his country's efforts to recapture land occupied by Israel in 1967.

In 1975 he severed his ties with the Soviet Union and in a startling move in 1977 he addressed the Israeli parliament - a step which led to the Camp David peace talks.

He shared the Nobel Peace prize with Menachem Begin in 1978 after the accords were signed. As a result of the agreement with Israel, Egypt was suspended from the Arab League and the country became more dependent on the US.

Although he was more liberal than his predecessor and attracted foreign investment, towards the end of his rule the Egyptian economy struggled.

He became increasingly autocratic and in 1981 arrested some 2,000 dissidents. He was assassinated in September 1981 by Islamic militants while reviewing a military parade.

Menachem Begin (1913-1992)

He joined the Zionist movement in Poland and fled to Lithuania, then in the Soviet Union, when Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

He was arrested and sentenced to eight years in a Siberian labour camp but was released in 1941 when the Soviet Union entered the war. His parents and brother were killed in the Holocaust.

Begin went to British-mandated Palestine in 1942 as a soldier in the Free Polish Army. After demobilisation he became commander of Irgun, an underground organisation dedicated to ending the British mandate for Palestine.

In 1946 the Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 British, Arab and Jewish soldiers and civilians. The British offered a reward for his arrest.

After Israel gained independence in 1948, the Irgun was disbanded and Begin founded the Right-wing Herut Party. He was elected to the Knesset in 1949.

In 1973 three Right-wing parties united under the name of Likud and Begin was elected leader. He became Israel's Prime Minister in 1977 when Likud won the election - a post he held until 1983.

In 1978 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with President Sadat of Egypt after signing the Camp David peace accords. Begin had a reputation as a hard-liner and started the wholesale settlement of the West Bank and twice invaded the Lebanon.

The second invasion of 1982 attracted widespread criticism inside and out of Israel, and he stepped down a broken man in 1983.

Yitzhak Shamir (1915-)

He joined Lehi (also called the Stern Gang), a breakaway of the Zionist group Irgun which was dedicated to evicting the British from Palestine.

Shamir was arrested twice by the British, in 1941 and 1946. After his second escape from internment, he made his way to France where he lived until returning to the newly-formed state of Israel in 1948.

He served as a Mossad operative in Europe until 1965. He was elected to the Knesset in 1973 and became its speaker in 1977. He opposed Prime Minister Begin's stance in the Camp David accords.

He was Israeli Foreign Minister between 1980 and 1983 and became leader of the Right-wing alliance, Likud.

He was Prime Minister between 1983 and 1984 and again from 1986-1992.

He supported the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and refused to negotiate with the PLO. He retired from the Knesset in 1996.

Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970)

Almost immediately he nationalised the Suez Canal after he was refused Western aid for the Aswan dam project. The region was destabilised and Egypt was invaded by British, French and Israeli troops who succeeded in taking control of the canal zone. Under the ceasefire agreement, the canal was returned to Egypt.

He was a charismatic but ruthless leader who gained popular appeal for his Arab nationalism and for rebuilding Egypt but his hostility towards Israel and his acts of repression against the press and opposition parties resulted in a loss of Western support.

He forged an alliance with Syria in 1958 under which the two countries became one nation - the United Arab Republic.

Smaller Arab states joined but the unity did not last and Syria withdrew in 1961. In 1967 Egypt lost the Sinai to Israel during the Six Day War.

He offered to resign the presidency but he enjoyed popular support and retained power until his death from a heart attack in 1970.

Golda Meir (1898-1978)

She joined the Zionist movement and settled in Palestine in 1921. Meir entered politics as an active member of the Histadrut labour federation.

In 1946 she became head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, the precursor to the Israeli government. She was Israeli ambassador to the Soviet Union when the state of Israel was founded, Labour Minister from 1949-1956, and then Foreign Minister until 1966.

She led the unified Israel Labour Party and became Israel's fourth Prime Minister from 1969-1974. She won international acclaim as a leader.

She resigned in 1974 after the trauma of the 1973 Yom Kippur War which caught Israel by surprise.

David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973)

He emigrated to Palestine in 1906. In 1910 he edited a Zionist journal before studying law in Istanbul. He returned to Palestine at the outbreak of the First World War and joined the Jewish legion fighting with the British Army against Turkey.

After the capture of Palestine by the British he became active in Jewish politics and eventually became leader of the Mapai (Labour) party.

He favoured the 1937 British partition plan for Palestine but opposed the British White Paper limiting Jewish immigration into the region. Following the Second World War he was instrumental in forming a single Jewish armed force with the aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine.

The new state of Israel, whose establishment was declared by Mr Ben-Gurion in May 1948, was immediately invaded by four Arab countries.

Israel survived and Mr Ben-Gurion became the state's first Prime Minister following the elections of 1949. His first government fell in 1951 and he resigned as premier in 1953.

In 1955 he rejoined the cabinet, first as defence minister and then as Prime Minister. He invaded the Sinai peninsula with British and French troops during the Suez Crisis of 1956.

He resigned again in 1963 and retired from the Knesset in 1970. He opposed the occupation of Arab territories gained in the Six Day War.